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Mapping the Surface of a Rocky Extrasolar Planet: Kepler-10b

Details

Date

Tuesday, September 03 2013 - 12:00 pm, PDT

Speaker

Jason Rowe

Affiliation

SETI Institute

Description

Kepler-10b is a terrestrial planet orbiting its host star every 20 hours. At semi-major axis of 0.017 AU the planetary surface receives a massive amount of flux that heats to approximately 2000 K. The Kepler photometer with its broadband filter can detect thermal emission from the planet and an occultation with a depth of 8 parts-per-million has been clearly detected. We also also confirm the detection of a phase curve with a shape dominated by the day-night cycle of the planet. There is also significant asymmetry present. We present or interpretation of the asymmetry through thermal and reflection models of the planetary surface and present a surface brightness map of a rocky extrasolar planet.